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Wednesday, 28 June 2017

Wild Bird Wednesday 258 - Nankeen Night Heron

More shots from the trip on Yellow Water this week for Wild Bird Wednesday. As you may have gathered from the number of shots that this trip created, Kakadu is a remarkable place - with an abundance of things to point lenses at.

These birds are Nankeen Night Herons (Nycticorax caledonicus). And had I known the stories behind both of these names, I would have posted these images a lot sooner. Nankeen comes from Nanking, a town in China that produced a yellowish cotton cloth - which apparently was a similar colour to parts of this bird. I suppose this makes some sense. The scientific name means (and I assure that this is true!) Scottish Nightraven - which is about as wrong as it can get.

I do like this kind of thing.

Theses are three different birds - the ones with stripes are young birds, and the others are adults. In the adult bird you can just about see the long white plume that come off the back of its head.

As ever, to join in with WBW, just click the blue button below the thumbnails. SM

The final shot of the juvenile hardly looks like the same bird. It's like doing a puzzle sometimes to figure out what kind of bird they are. Nice shots. Interesting name facts. That was a fruitful trip!

Well a Scottish man must have seen this bird and named him what he thought was appropriate, but at least for the youngsters I agree they have an artistic look ... more like oil paint on water than fabric. I love the Herons and yes, I can see the little white plume on the back of the adult's head. These are awesome, Stewart and yet another first for me :)

The background on the bird's name was so interesting. It's funny how one thing can be so different from another but I love the second name too! Really wonderful photos! Hope you are having a great week!

Long way to go for Night Herons when you have them in melbourne :-)Terrific shots you got. The name caledonicus probably refers to New Caledonis (as opposed to Scotland, the original Caledonia, as named by the Romans) . I encountered the same mystery with the Green Rosella, Platycercus caledonicus. In the case of the Green Rosella it is even stranger as they rosella is not found there. Apparently the original specimen was mixed up with other collection material from New Caledonia.

Oh pooh. I missed being able to share my photos at your linkup, and I had the perfect series to share. I hope you'll come link up with me. The party stays open all week.Thanks.http://image-in-ing.blogspot.com/2017/07/splish-splash.html